Just thinking to myself in my head about this matchup, it's not exactly screaming Stephens to be quite honest with you. She is the more athletic, but she wouldn't be able to out-move Cornet. Outhit, perhaps, but not outmove or outgrind. Stephen's attacking shots are also very eratic and she throws in many sloppy, cheap errors on the backhand side.
My feeling is Alize will have a little too much experience and smartness for her. If they get into a grinding battle then Alize obviously wins, so Stephens will have to play her attacking style, as she does have two styles she switches between. Only matter is, is I believe under pressure and on the big points she is better with her working the ball around the court and patient tennis.
Yeah, she is a prospect but she hasn't been coming up trumps lately and often tends to make life extremely difficult for herself with gifting mini-leads in games and handing breaks away with strings of unforced errors. She even does this when she's playing well. I can see Cornet capitalising on any late christmas presents she is presented with.
Also the Perth courts aren't as fast as the Brisbane ones and Cornet was decent against Kvitova. She has more big match experience with WTA titles to her name, not that this is a big match.
Cornet 2.83 ML and 1.73 set handicap are seemingly gifts from what I can see.........
Anyone's thoughts on the points I've raised between now and start time in 25 minutes?